American Civil War Reconstruction, Birth of the Ku Klux Klan

As ex-Rebel soldiers returned home after
the Civil War was over, they found things had changed. Life
was not as they had remembered or expected. It was not the culture
they had fought to protect and maintain. The Confederacy had lost
the war. But many ex-Confederate soldiers did not understand what
that actually meant until they reached home. In 1865, many Southern
towns and cities and villages were in ruins. In some areas, nothing
was left of homes or crops, except the occasional remains of a
chimney. All they could see was the dark remains of ashes. The appearance of the South was a shock.

Even more shocking to these returning
ex-Confederate veterans was the news that the Republican controlled Congress had placed the South under
military control. Many government officials recently elected to office were
carpetbaggers and scalawags, nicknames Southerners gave the men they perceived
as greedy whites from the North, who arrived in the South to steal what
resources they had left. The government raised taxes, but Southerners had no
money to pay them. Banks were closed. Commerce was non-existent. Nearly all
private and most public funds were gone. When people could not pay taxes, their
property was taken. As well,
thanks to the 13th Amendment to the Constitution, ex-slaves were now finally able to
vote, and were struggling to claim their rights. About 97% of freed slaves could
not read and had never been in a store. They knew nothing about money. Yet, some
found themselves elected to the state legislature, which was controlled by white
carpetbaggers and scalawags. Returning veterans realized the South they came
back to was not the South they had left. They had lost control of their
government and their culture.

Some returning ex-Confederate veterans (former Rebel
soldiers) tried to regain some measure of control by forming secret societies.
There were many such societies formed, such as the Pale Faces, the Sons of
Midnight, and the Ku Klux Klan (also
known as the KKK and the Klan.) These societies
gained power through fear. The Klansmen, members of the most vengeful and violent society,
the KKK, wore white robes and hoods over their heads when they paid midnight visits to
frightened people. This disguised their individual identity, but gave unity to
their purpose. A group of Klansmen was a terrifying sight. The Klan and other
secret societies tortured and killed many innocent people. Members of these
secret societies became violent criminals,
full of hate and rage.

These societies did have a goal. The goal was to
terrorize carpetbaggers, scalawags, and African-Americans so that life in the
South would go back to the way things were before the Civil War. These men did
not seem to realize their goal was impossible to achieve. The prewar society in
the South could never return. Things had changed, forever.